The regression tests can be run against an already installed and
running server, or using a temporary installation within the build
tree. Furthermore, there is a "parallel"
and a "sequential" mode for running the
tests. The sequential method runs each test script alone, while the
parallel method starts up multiple server processes to run groups
of tests in parallel. Parallel testing adds confidence that
interprocess communication and locking are working correctly.

To run the parallel regression tests after building but before
installation, type:

make check

in the top-level directory. (Or you can change to src/test/regress and run the command there.) At the
end you should see something like:

=======================
All 115 tests passed.
=======================

or otherwise a note about which tests failed. See Section 31.2 below before assuming
that a "failure" represents a serious
problem.

Because this test method runs a temporary server, it will not
work if you did the build as the root user, since the server will
not start as root. Recommended procedure is not to do the build as
root, or else to perform testing after completing the
installation.

If you have configured PostgreSQL to install into a location where an
older PostgreSQL installation
already exists, and you perform make check
before installing the new version, you might find that the tests
fail because the new programs try to use the already-installed
shared libraries. (Typical symptoms are complaints about undefined
symbols.) If you wish to run the tests before overwriting the old
installation, you'll need to build with configure --disable-rpath. It is not recommended
that you use this option for the final installation, however.

The parallel regression test starts quite a few processes under
your user ID. Presently, the maximum concurrency is twenty parallel
test scripts, which means forty processes: there's a server process
and a psql process for each test
script. So if your system enforces a per-user limit on the number
of processes, make sure this limit is at least fifty or so, else
you might get random-seeming failures in the parallel test. If you
are not in a position to raise the limit, you can cut down the
degree of parallelism by setting the MAX_CONNECTIONS parameter. For example:

To run the tests after installation (see Chapter 16), initialize a data area and
start the server as explained in Chapter
18, then type:

make installcheck

or for a parallel test:

make installcheck-parallel

The tests will expect to contact the server at the local host
and the default port number, unless directed otherwise by
PGHOST and PGPORT
environment variables. The tests will be run in a database named
regression; any existing database by this
name will be dropped.

The tests will also transiently create some cluster-wide
objects, such as roles and tablespaces. These objects will have
names beginning with regress_. Beware of
using installcheck mode in installations
that have any actual users or tablespaces named that way.

The make check and make installcheck commands run only the "core" regression tests, which test built-in
functionality of the PostgreSQL
server. The source distribution also contains additional test
suites, most of them having to do with add-on functionality such as
optional procedural languages.

To run all test suites applicable to the modules that have been
selected to be built, including the core tests, type one of these
commands at the top of the build tree:

make check-world
make installcheck-world

These commands run the tests using temporary servers or an
already-installed server, respectively, just as previously
explained for make check and make installcheck. Other considerations are the same
as previously explained for each method. Note that make check-world builds a separate temporary
installation tree for each tested module, so it requires a great
deal more time and disk space than make
installcheck-world.

Alternatively, you can run individual test suites by typing
make check or make
installcheck in the appropriate subdirectory of the build
tree. Keep in mind that make installcheck
assumes you've installed the relevant module(s), not only the core
server.

The additional tests that can be invoked this way include:

Regression tests for optional procedural languages (other than
PL/pgSQL, which is tested by the
core tests). These are located under src/pl.

Regression tests for contrib modules,
located under contrib. Not all contrib modules have tests.

Regression tests for the ECPG interface library, located in
src/interfaces/ecpg/test.

Tests stressing behavior of concurrent sessions, located in
src/test/isolation.

When using installcheck mode, these
tests will destroy any existing databases named pl_regression, contrib_regression, isolation_regression, ecpg1_regression, or ecpg2_regression, as well as regression.

By default, tests using a temporary installation use the locale
defined in the current environment and the corresponding database
encoding as determined by initdb. It can
be useful to test different locales by setting the appropriate
environment variables, for example:

For implementation reasons, setting LC_ALL does not work for this purpose; all the other
locale-related environment variables do work.

When testing against an existing installation, the locale is
determined by the existing database cluster and cannot be set
separately for the test run.

You can also choose the database encoding explicitly by setting
the variable ENCODING, for example:

make check LANG=C ENCODING=EUC_JP

Setting the database encoding this way typically only makes
sense if the locale is C; otherwise the encoding is chosen
automatically from the locale, and specifying an encoding that does
not match the locale will result in an error.

The database encoding can be set for tests against either a
temporary or an existing installation, though in the latter case it
must be compatible with the installation's locale.

The core regression test suite contains a few test files that
are not run by default, because they might be platform-dependent or
take a very long time to run. You can run these or other extra test
files by setting the variable EXTRA_TESTS.
For example, to run the numeric_big
test:

make check EXTRA_TESTS=numeric_big

To run the collation tests:

make check EXTRA_TESTS=collate.linux.utf8 LANG=en_US.utf8

The collate.linux.utf8 test works only
on Linux/glibc platforms, and only when run in a database that uses
UTF-8 encoding.

The source distribution also contains regression tests for the
static behavior of Hot Standby. These tests require a running
primary server and a running standby server that is accepting new
WAL changes from the primary (using either file-based log shipping
or streaming replication). Those servers are not automatically
created for you, nor is replication setup documented here. Please
check the various sections of the documentation devoted to the
required commands and related issues.

To run the Hot Standby tests, first create a database called
regression on the primary:

psql -h primary -c "CREATE DATABASE regression"

Next, run the preparatory script src/test/regress/sql/hs_primary_setup.sql on the
primary in the regression database, for example:

Now arrange for the default database connection to be to the
standby server under test (for example, by setting the PGHOST and PGPORT environment
variables). Finally, run make standbycheck
in the regression directory:

cd src/test/regress
make standbycheck

Some extreme behaviors can also be generated on the primary
using the script src/test/regress/sql/hs_primary_extremes.sql to
allow the behavior of the standby to be tested.

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